Visual-band brightnesses of Near Earth Objects that will be discovered in the infrared by NEO Surveyor

TL;DR

This paper discusses the expected visible brightness of Near Earth Objects detected by NEO Surveyor in the infrared, highlighting the uncertainties in predicting visual brightness from infrared data alone and emphasizing the importance of follow-up observations.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of the visual-to-infrared color range of NEOs detected by Surveyor and assesses the uncertainties in estimating visual brightness without prior observations.

Findings

Infrared flux alone leads to significant uncertainty in visual brightness estimates.

Follow-up photometry improves predictions of reflected light in visible and near-infrared.

Understanding color ranges aids in planning ground-based follow-up observations.

Abstract

NEO Surveyor will detect asteroids and comets using mid-infrared thermal emission, however ground-based followup resources will require knowledge of the expected visible light brightness in order to plan characterization observations. Here we describe the range of visual-to-infrared colors that the NEOs detected by Surveyor will span, and demonstrate that for objects that have no previously reported Visual band observations, estimates of the Johnson Visual-band brightness based on infrared flux alone will have significant uncertainty. Incidental or targeted photometric followup of objects discovered by Surveyor enables predictions of the fraction of reflected light visible and near-infrared wavelengths, supporting additional detailed characterization.